Education and Sustainable Development Goals - Notes on the HLPF

Notes on the HLPF *

Gihan Sami Soliman 

Having been there; participating in the High Level Political Forum (HLPG) [1], while the world is about to enter a voluntary commitment towards the conservation of life, equality for all and sustainable development is a breath-taking life experience.

In spite of the glory of the historic moments, and the utopic 17 proposed goals, I must say that I had the impression that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needed to have been more interrelated, and that they do not automatically link to the common stakeholders/right holders; perhaps due - on one dimension, to the sophisticated nature and language of the UN documents (as well as processes). It was the smartest intervention of all (proposed by the Women's Major Group) that women’s rights for equality must cut across all goals, in addition to standing alone in Goal 5. Actually with a broader vision, all goals need to cut across all other goals and relate meaningfully to the current social structures (and concepts). Life is a complex multidimensional phenomenon and so must be our solutions to conserve it.

On Education and Communication 

In relation to Goal 4 – that is “ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education”, as it related to all the rest of the seventeen goals.” 

• While ensuring the “appreciation of cultural diversity” (4.7), priority must be given to promoting the human rights of girls and women, in case values conflict. So much of the violence against women - including the horrific FGM, is culturally sanctioned and reinforced. This corona of sacredness we set around cultures must fall off. We surely need to keep respecting all people (i.e. each other) in their diverse beliefs, but not  necessarily sanctify all cultures or beliefs as a result. Cultures need to evolve; take the good sides and leave the maladaptive ones as we grow and advance in civilization. Quality education must promote, above all, values of justice and stresses a sort of beyond-cultural-diversity approach to human rights. 

• My major concern is that social sciences have been (almost totally) disregarded in the GSDR 2015 (Global Sustainable Development Report 2015). The need for aligning objectives among stakeholders has been overlooked as a result. The SDGs, as they are, will conflict not only with the current economic structures, but also many of the concepts steering our life organisation. How is this going to be addressed in terms of education and communication? Giving in to the dynamics of free market, and neo-liberalism, shifts the power from politicians to businessmen, and the later would continue to act based on a distorted interpretation of the "survival of the fittest" paradigm.* That's not because they are evil, but because this is how things seem to have been working well for decades. Have you ever heard a liberalist calling equality among people “immoral”? I have. Whether such a view is valid or invalid, how come that it has never been tackled in the GSDR 2015? Because social sciences are not science enough?                                                                                                                                                

• Education in the GSDR 2015 seems to be only about development rather than sustainable development; tackling skills rather than ethics. What skills do we need to teach our children to stop violence against women or embrace the values of equality, tolerance  or diversity? The term ethics does not even occur (significantly) throughout the report. Without communicating the evolutionary ethics behind the SDGs (which actually link them together) to all stakeholders, the SDGs might remain unattainable. 

-       This is also significant while addressing Goal 10: 

While working to reduce inequality within and among countries (G10), It would be useful to acknowledge the fact that much of today’s poverty is not a result of lacking resources, but rather links to existing (well-established) cultural, economic and political structures dominating our life organisation(s). It is important for the purposes of education and communication to clearly identify a new era of a global solidarity for conservation of life and survival of our human kind, so as to advise all stakeholders of the significant transformation in case it conflicts with any existing systems or concepts.

Addressing such cognitive gaps, does not have to be all the role of the HLPF, but it requires –at least, acknowledgement and extra support to educational organisations working to promote the SDGs, and a focus on interdisciplinary holistic scientific research and publication.

                                                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
       
* Although Neo-libralism has not been frankly associated with the so called Social Darwinism – and most of social Darwinists have not frankly called themselves as such. But it was Herbert Spencer, a liberal utilitarian, who established the “survival of the fittest” natural fallacy by trading heavily in the evolution paradigm so as to explain how the liberal utilitarian logic of justice emerges (Stanford Encyclopedia). 

للقراءة باللغة العربية

* Draft shared with several civil society world organisations earlier.

Between the "Conservation of the Homo sapiens" 2014 & BBC 2015's best seller: Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind

Review:

Although the general framework, findings and the titles of the two books appear to be amazingly close; The prize-winner, in his TV interview with the BBC  oversimplifies the issue of abstraction (what he calls "imagination"), and presents a couple of slightly distorted facts, such as that the difference between our species and the previous human species is not in the "brain"; stating that the most-recent previous human species (Neanderthals) had bigger brains, without any reference to areas of growth, shrinking or development. In all cases, it conflicts with his own findings: If the difference lies only in the faculty of "imagination", as he argues, or in "abstraction, conceptualization and strategic planning" (among other factors) as I argued, then it has - one way or another, to relate to the brain. Here is a quick comparison between the two arguments in six points, listed neatly in one table.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

~ Albert Einstein

Conservation of the Homo sapiens: The survival of the Wise; on the Cybernetics of education;

By

Gihan Sami Soliman

Published April 2014

 (284678811©1/3/2014 UK Copyright Registration Service)
 
&

BBC bestseller

Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind

 
By

Yuval Noah Harari

Published 4 Sep 2014

 Based on a BBC interview with the author of the latter on what makes us human.

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********     [[[[[[ (READ ONLINE) ]]]]]]  *********

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For those interested in interdisciplinary perspectives. 

My argument on what makes us human.

From the Conservation of the Homo sapiens: The survival of the Wise; on the #Cybernetics of education.

We are not just another species!

#~#~#~# New Concepts #~#~#~#:

* The Real-living-system Theory.* The sociophysiobiological kingom.* The Cybernetic Phylogeny.

More Cybernetics designs and  illustrations on MY Own Education.

Copyrights 2011-2015.

How far can our kind be trusted on geoengineering?

 How far can our kind be trusted on geoengineering?
A multi-disciplinary account of global governance issues in light of Holistic Darwinism

Peer-reviewed

Gihan Sami Soliman

International-Curricula Educators Association

www.icea-global.org

07/05/2015

Would a human kind comprising an estimated number of 700 million of hungry people (WFP, 2014), while wasting one third of its food be entrusted on geoengineering the climate for ecological restoration? The humanity complaining today about the depletion of fossil fuel and global warming, while the little bit of sunlight falling on earth for one hour meets the world's energy demands for an entire year?! (Inslee et al, 2008). How much of today's hunger, misery and fears are all about politics and governance? Perhaps the greatest deal!

          Fears of a man-made doomsday has been lingering there for a few decades, expressed in several forms and cultures (Preston, 2012; Ginn, 2015); but officially by the publication of the “Limits to Growth” – 1972 (Hall, 2009). This seems to have been pushing humanity away from the “individualism” (Encyclopaedia Britannica) associated with the Laissez-faire economy of the traditional liberalism, justified at a time by what is known as the “Social Darwinism”, towards a sort of global solidarity enthusiasm – at least in principle.

[[ Read the whole paper ]]

A list of all publications

What is this about?

Each science domain expresses geoenigneering in a different way, and in different jargons. I integrated the different perspectives together, expressed in one simple language. The conclusion is that we have been already been manipulating the ecology for decades, by manipulating nature's fundamentals, till we've reached the current accumulative situation. As an educator, I plan my lesson in line with the objectives defined by the Bloom's Taxonomy. In the psychomotor dimension of the Blooms Taxonomy, and at its highest level, there is manipulation! Manipulation of Nature's fundamentals is what we teach our children to be good at, on a vocational level. So it is only the level of awareness and the consensus on the convenient action that makes today's proposed "geoengineering" called as such, not the action itself. This consensus is the real problem! Science says that decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide today will not alone solve the problem, and governments might have to take actions in case of emergency, if the weather takes a sudden dangerous turn. But because there is a trust issue, and lack of science integration - to help us see the whole picture, we are reluctant to discuss it or study it further. This paper presents an integrated vision of the case and calls for more studies on geoengineering.

 

Related:

Article Review

20 Reasons why geoengineering might be a bad idea - by Alan Robock
Cybernetics and ecological ethics

By Gihan Sami Soliman
About the blogger

تطويرالتعليم في فنلندا وتكامل العلوم

قررت فنلندا إحداث تغييرا جذرياً في نظامها التعليمي وذلك بتدريس موضوعات بدلاً من المواد. وهذا الإسلوب هوتعميق لمفهوم الأنشطة عابرة المناهج أو التكاملية . هذا التعميق هو جوهر مبادرة العلوم عبر مصر  ونظريتي في تكامل العلوم و التي صغتها وشرحتها بإستفاضة من خلال توثيق الأنشطة والشراكات التي قمت بها خلال عدة سنوات ومن خلال ثلاثة كتب منشورة في أمازون وهي

Science and Theology; Cognition and Real-living-systems

Conservation of the Homo sapiens: The survival of the Wise; on the Cybernetics of Education

The Dynamics of Change: The capacity of transforming self and the society





Science Across Egypt©: Integration of sciences + community participation at Qawmia American School 2012

 

 

وتتلخص نظرية الأنظمة الحية الحقيقية * في أن الفصل بين الطبيعية والإنسانية غير واقعي ، وأن موضوعية العلوم الطبيعية والتي تفصل بينها وبين العلوم الإنسانية خرافة. وقد قمت بتلخيص الكيان الإنساني بوجوده البيولوجي والفيزيائي و الإجتماعي  في صيغة واحدة سميتها شجرة التطور السيبرنطيقي ** وهي بديل لنظرية كل الأشياء التي أجهدت عباقرة الفيزياء بحثاً، مع أن نظرية كل الأشياء - إن وجدت - فلابد أن تشتمل على جميع الأبعاد الحياتية الواقعية وأن تكتب بلغة مشتركة.

 

حتى سمعت عند تجربة فنلندا - وهي من أ كثر الدول نجاحاً في تطوير التعليم - كنت أظن أن مصالحة العلوم فعلياً، مسألة غيرمطروحة في هذا الجيل بسبب ثقل التراث المعرفي والمجتمعي الناتج عن الإنفصال. ولكن فتحت فنلندا طاقة نور للعالم ليس على مستوى التعليم فقط بل أيضاًعلى مستوى البحث العلمي.

 

*Real-living-systems

**Cybernetic Phylogeny

وسأحكي لكم غداً المزيد

Science Across Egypt© - CIRCULARITY & COMPLEXITY

Since 2008 I have been working on linking science education to the community in Egypt. Many people worked on that but my programmes had two areas of distinction that have been expressed in  several articles; initiatives, books and project designs, that I produced over several years of activism.

First: Complexity

1.1. The complexity of integrated management.

1.2. The complexity of science integration: Where natural sciences meet with social sciences through the cross-curricular activities in relation to the surrounding environment.

Although I designed and own the copyrights and prototypes of my projects, they all depend on integrated management and science integration. This means that a programme cannot run totally by me or any single person. Any programme whether Science Across Egypt© ,  IPNAMME© , Sinai Sustainability Cyberneitcs Center© , Egypt's Got Talents©  and most recently the Sustainability Cybernetics Journal©  must be managed by a homogenous team of leaders from different disciplines, to produce a unique integrative task.

For example, the basic implementation team of Science Across Egypt© was:

*   Me - as an educational consultant, and Dr Ahmed Abdel Azeem. Others who contributed to the programme;
Ahmed Gheith, Scientific illustrator; Dr Mohamed Abdel Motaleb,  Nile University; Jonty Lycock, Red Sea Research; Miss Shyamaa & Israa Mahmoud and Mrs Iman Kamal, Qawmia American School Agouza and others.

* The basic implementation team of Sinai Sustainability Cybernetics Center© was me, Maged Al-Saied and Dr Waleed Sadek;

*  The basic team for  Egypt's got Talents© was me and my dear friend and great artist Khaled Hamed;

*   The basic team for implementation of the IPNAMME© project is huge and will be announced soon.

Second: Circularity

2.1. Circularity of on-going self-reform and progress.

Circularity of the on-going self-reform, based on a proposed causal circular relationship between quality education and sustainable development/protection of the environment. All the projects, in terms of mission, are meant to produce an autonomy of reform in the educational system (building a second-order cybernetic model of education for sustainable development) .

2.2. Circularity of finance:

In terms of finance, the Science Across Egypt - as an award-winning project, did not depend on extra spending on education from parents, schools, the government or any external fund - which why it won the Educating Africa Awards 2011 for entrepreneurship in education. It "pays itself".

Science Across Egypt depended in its first phase on my educational consultancy for international schools seeking accreditation in Egypt, as well as general teacher training to produce the autonomy of self-reform. Schools already pay for quality assurance and teacher training to get accredited (according to the Egyptian laws which link accreditation to licencing international school). As an educational expert in the international educational system in Egypt - due to being in (administrative) charge of the regional office of one of the American accrediting association in Egypt 2005-2007, I was hired by schools to conduct the self- study, guide their quality control process prior to accreditation and as well as the design/development of curricula/extra curricular activities. This process involved management of the school activities at the time of the self-study and a power to hire teachers as well as recruiting volunteers who were willing to give a hand.

GALLERY
LINKS TO ACTIVITIES


Worthy to make the point here that the "international-education" in Egypt - and the Middle East in general, has a different notion than the one commonly used in the West. It is of Egyptian students studying international curricula. International education is a huge business in Egypt so the  number of international schools is shockingly high but unannounced (you have to count the schools through the different accrediting organisations or know by first-hand experience as I do -  being a successful business used as a backdoor to universities to escape the difficult and highly competitive "Thanawya Amma" Egyptian high schooling. The programme also comprised other nationwide and international raising-awareness campaigns, research and publications.



Science Across Egypt Activities: Integration of sciences + community participation @ Qawmia American School 2012

 I write to wrap up an approach in education and in acknowledgement of the role of each one who collaborated either as hired or voluntarily or who is willing to collaborate in the future, but specially in acknowledgment of the role of Dr Ahmed Abdel Azeem in implementing the Science Across Egypt©  project and to thank him for what he said in  his most recent Radio interview - which I have just been forwarded, about our previous collaboration.

Unfortunately, sustainability is not separate from politics and equality issues in the Middle East.

In spite of the heavy persecution - which drove me out of Egypt March 2013 - because of my religion and my activism as a Coptic independent female*, all of the models I instituted are now alive, autonomous and thriving. It is rewarding to see the fruit of my well-documented activism blooming, even if I was denied the appreciation sometimes. However, I keep a public account and documentation of my voluntary activities and research on this blog [MY OWN EDUCATION] as a love letter for my children and next generations hopefully reading: Appreciated or not, this is (as I aspire) my modest contribution to "advancing the human organisation", with much love.


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 * 2011-2013 was a hard time for women in general and Coptic women in particular. For a Coptic independent female activist it was a hell.

a) An article about a Christian woman on the path of emigration by Dr Mostafa Alnagar March 2013
b) A presentation at the Amnesty International York (2014)on Women's day about women in Egypt at that time. 

FGM & Circumcision: Two Different Battles

A perspective:

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

​

OmAhmed (a nickname meaning [mother of Ahmed]) was our neighbor 20 years ago. She visited once, and one of my little sisters burst into tears. OmAhmed looked at her and wondered: ِِAll this fuss because she pumped into a table, what will she do then when she gets cut?

- Cut? What does this mean? Why would a girl be cut?

Om Ahmed explained to me that a "good girl" must have her sexual organ (the clitoris)  cut that she gets to be like "lukewarm water" in bed. Otherwise, "she'll get on top of her man". She conveyed the horrific secret in almost a whisper.

She then told me about her unforgettable memories of it. How it "burnt like fire" for days and how she and her friends used to immerse themselves in the Nile water to relief the unbearable pain for a while. That was horrific to hear!

Later on, I learned how a woman's gentile has such a complex structure to prevent out-of-pain death while giving birth to a baby, and why she need a sort of attached "sensation organ" to complement her reproductive system (Al Saadwi, N. 1969; 1975)

Paradoxically, and because some cultures require a seemingly-analogous male cut called circumcision, this horrific process is often called female-circumcision as well.

However, if men would like to ban male-circumcision, they need to fight a separate battle - and get all the support they want. Male-circumcision and Female Gentile Mutilation are actually two opposing practices, in spite of the apparent analogy! That is to say, they're not different levels of the same thing.  

Apart from the well-known life-long medical complications associated with FGM [1], it is essential to note that

- Male circumcision does not affect sexual function, pleasure or satisfaction.  While;

FGM is practiced specifically to prevent sexual pleasure and satisfaction. FGM is an amputation resulting in sexual dysfunction.

Male circumcision is practiced in victory (speaking of the culture: I'm personally not for it): The emotional support a male gets for undergoing such (unnecessary in my opinion) process may outweigh the associated frustration. In Egypt, neighbours party to celebrate male-circumcision in rituals similar to those of celebrating a baby-birth.

FGM, on the other hand, is designed to cause a lifelong trauma, humiliation and an ultimate loss of self-esteem (silence). It is therefore practiced in secret gatherings; in shame! This facilitates subjugating women, keeping them under masculine provision and facilitates (justifiable) exploitation in return of protection. It simply turns a woman into a "grateful" tool of production and reproduction. A mutilated female can easily get to think of herself as a commodity, and to the highest privilege, a trophy!

This criminal practice shapes and reshapes communities, and its impact goes beyond all localities. It is a form of social engineering with two fundamental problems:

1- The gain the oppressor incurs is too immense to be given up - although the total effect is destructive. Evidence suggests that oppression of women and gender inequality are associated with poverty and loss of biodiversity.

2- The oppressed is not usually aware of the transformation her personality undergoes and thus cooperate with the oppressor to perpetuate the violent process.

Reference:

 [1] (Nawal El Saadawi: Women and Sex, Cairo, 1969; Women and Neurosis, Cairo, 1975)
 [2] Soliman G.S. Conservation of the Homo sapiens: The survival of the Wise; on the Cybernetics of education. available at [http://www.amazon.com/Conservation-Homo-sapiens-Cybernetics-education/dp/1499129246]


   

Conservation of the Homo sapiens: The survival of the Wise; on the Cybernetics of education

ON THE SURVIVAL OF HUMAN SPECIES BY MEANS OF CYBERNETIC SELECTION

This book harnesses natural sciences to humanities vigorously through cybernetics, to construct a holistic expression of the Real-living-systems which would work for educators and environmental ethicists

ON INTERNATIONAL_CURRICULA EDUCATORS WEBSITE

All copyrights reserved

Do NOTcopy from this blog without a prior written permission from the author

First published on 4/42014

هوموسيبيان هو الإسم العلمي للبشر كسلالة من ضمن سلالات الكائنات الحية على الأرض. كتاب "الحفاظ على البشرية" يبين أن الإنسان، وإن تشابه عضوياً مع باقي الكائنات، إلا أنه يتميز بالقدرة على السيبرنطيكا. الكتاب يشرح دور هذه القدرة في بناء الهوية البشرية وإعادة صياغة البيئة. وهو يشرح بشكل علمي دور التعليم في صياغة الضمير الإنساني وإعادة صياغة الأشياء. هذا الكتاب في تكامل العلوم والفلسفات.

Cybernetics and Ecological Ethics

...
Peterson (1999) in an attempt to reach a balanced approach to nature - which would work for environmental ethics - summarises several relevant perspectives: For constructivists, nature is appreciated as a cultural byproduct. It is either structured exclusively through the cultural interpretation of the correspondent natural objects, or physically constructed by and through human cultures. Naturalists, on the other hand, regard human beings as one species among millions of other living organisms and natural objects contributing to the structure of life on earth.
Read more

All copyrights reserved

Sinai Sustainability Cybernetics Center - TV Interview

 Naharak Saied Program - Chanel 1 - TV Interview March 2013 

Egyptian “SSCC” has been selected as one of the semi-finalist teams for this year’s

MIT Enterprise Forum  Arab Start-up  Competition for the Ideas Track'

.

SSCC (Sinai Sustainability Cybernetics Center) is an IMS project that applies a multiple educational program related to the original natural self-healing system of life on earth. Education, sustainable development, social justice disciplines interact in a causal circular relationship that education would contribute to the development of the local community in Sinai village, on both sustainability and  social responsibility levels while the community itself provides a unique  learning environment that will contribute to the development of the educational program in a closed signaling loop.

                                                     

                                         

InspirationGihan Soliman has been working closely since 2008 with several parties as an educational consultant and a social activist on relating education to sustainable development, citizenship and global citizenship in Egypt. Through several initiatives and discussions with the stakeholders in Egypt and the international community on education for sustainable development, and throughout her journey with educational reform venture in Egypt, she pointed out the compelling need to integrate sciences and technology to reach quality education.

Four years later, she met Maged Alsaid owner of Habiba Camp who has been working on sustainability in South Sinai through Woofing in Egypt and Dr.Waleed Sadek, an economic advisor and a social activist. She thought they are the perfect partners she’s looking to collaborate with on such a project while inspiring others around the world through their wide networks. In short, they developed together the initial agreements and a work plan.

 Problem & Project

SSCC aims at boosting a continuously developing community in South Sinai which has been depending only on the regular kind of tourism which harms the environment and the cultural heritage. Regular kind of tourism also is not stable and gets affected by the political situation in Egypt as a boundary zone.

Thus, the educational center will be using the integration of Sciences, Technology, Maths and environmental awareness in providing parallel education for the students in Egypt whether in colleges or schools while promoting agro-tourism as a substitute for the regular tourism in Sinai that affects the natural resources while building a sustainable community based on organic farming, permaculture applications, sea water farming and renewable energy, in addition to the human dimension of solidarity and social responsibility. This will be achieved through partnership with the community and affiliates in Sinai with local and international educational institutions.Nowadays, sustainable development is a tough job ahead of those who are concerned about the future of the world. SSCC is a project that would have a positive impact regarding educational and sustainable development in South Sinai, Egypt while it serves as a model to copy elsewhere around the world.

Find out more about SSCC by:

Watching a video pitch about the project on:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m5njhkIk7w